How a Banned Chat App Is Beating India’s Internet Shutdown – and What It Means for CLARITY Act

A political movement led by the youth of India forced the resignation of the national education minister earlier this week.

Their name… The Cockroach Janta Party.

Source: cockroachjantaparty.org

It’s quite the name. It originated from the Chief Justice of India.

Here’s the backstory: The Supreme Court of India was refusing to hear a case by the Delhi High Court because there was an ongoing investigation into lawyers practicing with fake degrees.

The Chief Justice of India’s response to the investigation caused a commotion:

There are already parasites of society who attack the system, and you want to join hands with them? There are youngsters like cockroaches; they don’t get any employment, and they don’t have any place in a profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, some of them become activists… they start attacking everyone…

While the Chief Justice tried later to clarify that those comments were intended about those with false degrees, the larger youth population ran with it in true online meme-like fashion.

The Cockroach Janta Party came online in the middle of May. It was a mix of legitimate concerns and issues, plus satire. The party’s taglines are “Voice of the Lazy & Unemployed” and a “platform for all the cockroaches out there.”

Then June 6 happened. Protests broke out in the streets starting in Delhi.

The catalyst was news about a leak of test questions for the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET). This is the most important exam for many young Indians. They invest years and often significant money preparing for these exams. Due to the leak, the testing agency announced a replacement exam, leading to reports of at least 20 students committing suicide due to the stress.

When documents surfaced that revealed that between 2004 and 2026 there were more than 110 leaks, impacting more than 22.5 million candidates, frustrations overflowed.

The news was a major stain on the credibility of institutions and the ruling political party that came into power during that time.

The cockroaches took up the controversy, and the Education Minister soon resigned on July 25.

But the leaks were just the start, as I’ll explain below.

The protests are reminding us why we should care so much about permissionless and open-source technology.

The reminder is especially timely as we wait to see what transpires with the digital asset bill, the CLARITY Act. This bill will protect many rights we typically don’t think about until we need them most.

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Why Bitchat Matters for CLARITY Act

The protests in India intensified due to a hunger strike following the test leaks.

Hunger strikes are nonviolent. But the Delhi Police are using batons, tear gas, water cannons, and some claim pellet guns against the activists.

In response, the movement is only growing. Last week, an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 individuals marched toward the Indian Parliament, calling for the removal of Prime Minister Modi.

The situation shows no signs of slowing. If anything, the cockroaches are becoming ever more resourceful.

That’s because the government’s next response has been to limit their ability to communicate and assemble by shutting down the internet.

This is quite the maneuver. The internet is how we communicate with one another throughout the day. Shutting down the internet is like removing freedom of speech. It’s quite the line to cross.

But for the movement, it didn’t matter due to a chat app called Bitchat.

Bitchat is a free-to-use, decentralized, open-source messaging app created by Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter/X and fintech company Block.

What makes the application so useful is that it uses Bluetooth to connect to other phones nearby. The typical range extends to 330 feet, with some extending beyond 1,300 feet when outdoors and using longer range.

Each phone or connection on the chat app acts as a relay node. When a user wants to send a message to their friend or fellow political activist in India, each phone helps to pass along the message to its destination. We call this “hops.”

The setup means two things. First, Bitchat is anonymous. You don’t need a phone number or email to sign up, which eliminates personal information being tied to an account.

And more importantly, it means no internet is needed. The solution has thrived during the internet shutdown.

But the government has only escalated things further.

The Value of Open and Permissionless Technology

The Indian government tried to restrict Bitchat to continue suppressing the protestors.

This caused GitHub, an open-source code base, to issue a note about the “Trust & Safety regarding your repositories.”

Source: X.com @callebtc

As the tweet states, GitHub and the Indian government were trying to delete the code.

The response… The codebase now lives on various other repositories and can be shared phone to phone without internet. There’s virtually no way to permanently delete the codebase, which means protestors will continue to use Bitchat.

And while the app allows users to send cryptocurrencies without internet, that’s not really why we’re bringing it up today in Chain of Thought.

Bitchat is open source and permissionless. Anybody can download the code to chat with friends and family even if the internet were to go down tomorrow.

This type of technology is useful for national disasters like hurricanes, making it relevant to anyone living in or around Florida. Or perhaps you’re in an area with high risk of earthquakes, ice storms, forest fires… It doesn’t really matter. The point is that it’s a backup solution.

Most importantly, this story is relevant as we watch the CLARITY Act get debated in Congress. The crux of the bill is about protecting decentralized, open-source, and permissionless tooling on public blockchains.

Developers writing code should not fear being jailed. Likewise, this kind of legislation will provide financial freedom in the sense that you won’t need a bank’s permission to send money or get a loan.

CLARITY Act is a protection of freedom. The ability to retain self-sovereignty is even more vital when we witness how that freedom can be at risk.

Current popular AI solutions are where we share thoughts, ideas, and even secrets. But those tools are in the early stages of government bans and permissioned AI usage.

We are only a small step away from an attack on permissionless and open-source AI solutions. It’s a threat to the power structures of society, and we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking it comes from a place of “Trust & Safety.”

So while today was a momentary break in the coverage of the CLARITY Act…

Let it serve as a reminder of why we should care so deeply about preserving and making this technology part of the fabric of our society.

Your Pulse on Crypto,

Ben Lilly
Editor, Chain of Thought